As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Wednesday, 13 April 2016

Cuckoos have started to make
their way back to the UK for the summer, according to wildlife experts who are
tracking the birds with satellite tags.

The British Trust for Ornithology
(BTO) is monitoring the progress of seven cuckoos as they migrate from their
wintering grounds in Africa, as part of efforts to find out why the species is
in decline.

In the past 25 years, cuckoo
numbers in the UK have dropped by two-thirds (65%), the BTO said.

So far, five cuckoos are resting
and feeding in West Africa before they attempt to cross the Sahara, the
satellite tracking shows, while two have already made it across the vast desert
and are transmitting from Algeria and Spain.

All of the cuckoos being tracked
have been given names, with three - Coo, Larry and Peckham - named by the
winning primary schools in a cuckoo bird naming competition.

Conservationists hope the birds
fare better than they did on their way to Africa last autumn.

In particular they will be
focusing on Welsh cuckoo David who is making his fourth northward tracked
journey.

He is now the oldest serving
satellite-tagged cuckoo as the most famous of the tracked cuckoos, Chris - who
was named after TV presenter Chris Packham - did not survive the journey south
across the Sahara to Africa last year.

Dr Chris Hewson, lead BTO
scientist on the project, said "Our birds left the Congo Rainforest in
mid-March and have been feeding up in West Africa before their dangerous desert
crossing.